It was about ten o'clock, but, although the season was mid-summer and the moon must have already risen, dark as only a moonless night in autumn could be. And with autumnal chillness the wind blew over the rye stubble, and the rain, which had just begun to fall again with renewed violence, beat into their faces. "Button your coat up," said Gotthold to his companion, who was swaying to and fro uncomfortably in his seat. "You seem very much heated." "Because I have kept buttoned up all the evening," answered the Assessor. "I mean it in a literal sense, on account of the ten thousand thalers I have had in my breast-pocket; figuratively I might have been somewhat more so; but for all that, I beg of you, my dear friend, give me some explanation of Brandow's mysterious conduct. He actually turned me out of doors! And why? I don't understand it. After we had been on the most cordial terms the whole evening; after we had been, so to speak, hand-and-glove. And everything settled! The whole large sum paid in cash, down to the last penny, which, to be sure, is the greatest mystery of all. And he is to have the money from Wollnow! Did Wollnow mystify me? And why? I no more see any light in all this than I can see my hand before my eyes. Horrible darkness!" "The moon has been up an hour already," said Hinrich Scheel. "And is that why you have no lamps on the carriage?" "Herr von Plueggen had none either." "You thought your pipe would give us light enough, didn't you?" "I needn't smoke, sir." "Then don't; I can't say that the odor of your canaster is very agreeable." "Folks like us can't smoke nice tobacco, like fine gentlemen," said Hinrich Scheel, emptying his pipe so roughly that the sparks flew in all directions through the darkness, and thrusting it into his breast-pocket. "Isn't this the same fellow who drove us here this afternoon?" asked the Assessor in a low tone. "The same," answered Gotthold; "and I should advise you to use the same precaution we adopted on the way here."